Piltdown Hoax

     Between 1912 and 1913, in the small English village of Piltdown,  Charles Dawson--an amateur archaeologist who specialized in fish fossil--, Arthur Smith Woodward--leading Geologist and keeper of the Geology department in England's Natural History Museum--, and Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin--a French Paleontologist and Jesuit priest-- discovered what was believed by many as the 'missing link' between apes and humans. There they found fragments of a skull--that was distinctly human--, a jawbone--ape-like in structure with two flat molar teeth intact that were like that of modern humans--and a canine tooth. In December of 1912, Woodward announced the discoveries at a meeting of the Geological Society; claiming the fossil at an estimate of 500,000 mya. This spurred excitement and controversy in the scientific community.

 

     Before these discoveries, England had to yet have discovered fossils of primitive humans; France, Germany, and Asia were leading the way. Some said the jawbone and the skull were too distinct to had been considered part of the same individual, but without the proper technology to back their suspicions, they were left helpless. Arthur Keith, a renowned English anatomist and a great supporter of Dawn man, was the one who pieced together the fragments. In completing the skull, they finally announced it as Eoanthropus dawsonii, or Dawn man. Eoanthropus dawsonii supported Keith's personal theory that humans developed a large brain before they walked upright, which was later disproved. It was not until Father Pierre Teilhard de Chardin found a canine tooth, the last piece to the puzzle, which further supported the discovery and convinced many more. The bones were kept in the Natural History Museum, authorizing only a select few to study them.

     After Dawson died in 1916, no fossils similar to that of Eoanthropus dawsonii--aside from other bones they found at the Piltdown pit--were found. On the contrary, scientists began to unearth new fossils in Asia and Africa that came hundreds of thousands of years after Piltdown Man. They were found to be less human with small skulls, but practically overlooked due to the fact that they contraindicated Eoanthropus dawsonii. In 1949, Dr Kenneth Oakley--a geologist, paleontologist, and physical anthropologist of London's Natural History Museum--exposed through newly discovered fluoride dating that the bones were merely around 50,000 years old. This puzzled Dr Oakley and later in 1953, with the help of Dr Joseph Weiner, a physical anthropologist, and Wilfrid Le Gros Clark, a human anatomist, tested the bones once again with a refined version of fluoride dating and exposed Piltdown man as a hoax. They discovered that the jawbone appeared to come from a female orangutan that was less than 100 years old. They also found that the teeth appeared filed down and the front part of the jaw was broken off. Apart from that, the stains on the bones showed to have been made chemically to look older than perceived.


     This caused turbulence in the scientific community and society. Science almost lost all its credibility and those who supported Piltdown man became ashamed, as they were seen as incompetent. For Forty years, humankind was lead to the erroneous conclusion of Piltdown man. National pride all but blinded some of the scientists in that era, but some also fell victims of groupthink and confirmation bias. Humans by nature make mistakes; making it impossible to completely remove the "human" factor from science. By removing the human factor, you would inevitably be removing humans from the process. Although, through the rigorous process of testing and peer review, otherwise known as the scientific method, we are able to extinguish those mistake and come as close to facts as we can. From this, people can take the fact that you shouldn't trust everything you hear or read, even if the source is an authority figure such as a scientist. We must stay curious, skeptical, and use our logical reasoning and critical thinking skills as a means to find the answers to which we seek. 

Piltdown excavation site. From left to right: Pierre Teilhard de Chardin, Charles Dawson, an unidentified worker and Arthur Smith Woodward.

 (sources: http://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/feb/05/piltdown-man-archaeologys-greatest-hoax http://hoaxes.org/archive/permalink/the_piltdown_man/
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/aso/databank/entries/do53pi.html)